Mindy Starns Clark: Selfie Saturday: Star Chasing in NYC

FUN UPDATE TO THIS POST

Further down on this page, you'll see my original post, where I mention the Broadway musical Hamilton and how I was dreaming of winning the Hamilton Lottery someday. Well, I'm happy to report that that "someday" finally came! After continuing to enter the lottery day after day after day, about a month after this post I ACTUALLY FINALLY WON!

It happened on a Saturday morning in September, when I checked the Hamilton App on my phone, expecting to see the usual "Sorry, but..." message. Instead, I was dumbfounded to read the words,"Congratulations! You are a winner!" What did I win? The right to purchase two front row tickets to the Broadway production of Hamilton for just $10 each--despite the fact that the price of regular tickets started at more than $1000 each!

After I finished jumping up and down and screaming and telling my husband, I looked at the clock–and nearly had a heart attack. That's because by that point it was around 11:30 am, the show was to start at 2pm, and we lived at least 2 hours from New York City and sometimes more, depending on traffic. Worse, I was still in my jammies, settled in for a lazy Saturday around the house.

Talk about a mad rush, I've never gotten ready so fast–nor gone anywhere looking so awful–as I did that day. I was a mess, but with no time for washing my hair or doing my makeup, I simply threw on some clothes and and headed for the car. Then we flew, driving as fast as we could all the way to NYC, parking at Grand Central Station, and literally running from there to the theatre (nearly a mile!) As you can see in this photo, by the time we arrived I was a hot, red-faced mess–but grinning like a fool, because we'd made it with 5 minutes to spare!

What followed was the single most thrilling theatre experience of my life, full of incredible dancing, rapping, singing, and acting. Our expectations had been high, but the reality exceeded them on every count.

Would we do it again? In a heartbeat! Talk about a treasured memory, and all it cost us was a lot of crazy rushing around and twenty bucks, aka a pair of "Hamiltons." As you can see from my husband's smile, below, a great time was had by all. :)

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ORIGINAL POST:

We spent last weekend in New York City, and I managed to score a celebrity photo with Broadway legend John Owen-Jones. What a voice! What an actor! He's currently starring as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, in a performance so outstanding it still gives me chills when I think about it. Our daughters had never seen Les Mis on Broadway before, so we decided to take them, and a great time was had by all.

Mindy with Jean Valjean, aka John Owen-Jones

I got a special treat at the end of the third song, where he sings:

I'll escape now from the world
From the world of Jean Valjean
Jean Valjean is nothing now
Another story must begin!

That's when he tears his yellow "ticket of leave" in half and tosses it away, then the lights go down. Well, sitting there in the darkness, I felt something fall on my lap (we were in the 2nd row) and, sure enough, when the lights came back on, I saw that half of the yellow ticket had landed on me!

Later, at the stage door, I got him to sign the ticket and my Playbill, both of which I plan to frame and hang in the "Broadway memorabilia" area of our family room. So cool.

We also caught the play The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I've been wanting to see for ages. Now that it's closing, we were able to score half price tickets and, again, we really enjoyed it. (Though I liked the book even better than the play. Here's a link to the paperback, if you're interested. I highly recommend it!)

Finally, we went to Finding Neverland, the story of J.M. Barrie, the man who wrote Peter Pan. It was my third time seeing it and I still sobbed like a baby.

I won't say any more for now but instead will wait till Writing Wednesday, where I'll explain why Finding Neverland is the perfect show for writers.

In the meantime, here are a few more photos from our weekend in the city...

This is me, doing some wishful thinking outside of Hamilton. (I enter the Hamilton Lottery almost every day but so far haven't won.) Someday I'll score a ticket and see it live and in person. For now, I'll have to be content with listening to the Broadway Cast Album, which I do believe is my favorite cast album of all time. And that says a lot, considering I've never even seen the show!

Finally, couldn't resist, here's a shot of my daughters in Times Square. Amazing, isn't it, how their smiles light up the city even more than all the lights around them? (Sorry, proud mom here.)